Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Artigas they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Shifted about, taken off before the hour, asked to do somebody else's running — Nicolás Leites has had enough of being useful and would like to be picked. Artigas know, and have known for weeks.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Artigas they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Artigas is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Shifted about, taken off before the hour, asked to do somebody else's running — Karol Cywiński has had enough of being useful and would like to be picked. Artigas know, and have known for weeks.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Artigas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Nicolás Leites has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
He came through the session, took part in everything and finished it smiling. Artigas will not rush him, and he will spend the next fortnight trying to rush them.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Artigas can pretend not to have heard.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Nicolás Leites plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
8 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Federico Viera will call it something else in private.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The deal that would have taken Federico Viera to Albion has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Artigas with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Artigas have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Artigas can pretend not to have heard.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Anthony da Costa will call it something else in private.
Asked to play a role that is not his, or taken off before the hour once too often — Nicolás Leites has let it be known that he does not like the way Artigas are using him. Managers hear this long before the press does.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Artigas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Artigas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Asked to play a role that is not his, or taken off before the hour once too often — Anthony da Costa has let it be known that he does not like the way Artigas are using him. Managers hear this long before the press does.
In brief
The terracesThe press have found their man in Nicolás Leites
48 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.